Jury Urges Death For Coleman In Girl`s Murder

April 13, 1986|By John O`Brien.

A Superior Court jury in Lake County, Ind., recommended Saturday that convicted killer Alton Coleman be put to death in the electric chair for the murder of a Gary girl and the attempted murder of another.

Judge Richard Maroc set a tentative sentencing date of May 2. Under Indiana law, only a judge can decide the penalty in a capital case.

For Coleman, 30, of Waukegan, the unanimous verdict marked the third time in less than a year that a jury had urged that he be executed.

Police charge that a crime spree involving Coleman and a companion, Debra Brown, 23, of Waukegan, began with the abduction and slaying of a 9-year-old Kenosha girl in the spring of 1984 and eventually included seven other victims. The two have been accused of committing murders and other crimes in six Midwestern states.

The Indiana case involved Tameka Turks, a 7-year-old Gary girl who was strangled June 18, 1984.

In two Ohio cases, involving the murders of a suburban Cincinnati woman and a 15-year-old girl, Coleman was convicted and sentenced to death. Both convictions are being appealed.

The Indiana jury recommended the death penalty after 1 hour and 25 minutes of deliberations. On Friday, the jury found Coleman guilty of strangling the Turks girl and assaulting her 9-year-old aunt. According to testimony of the surviving girl, now 11, the girls were lured into a woods by Coleman and Brown on the pretense of receiving candy and new clothing. Instead, they were attacked.

Jack Crawford, the Lake County prosecuting attorney, said Coleman would next be tried in Waukegan in the killing of the Kenosha girl, Vernita Wheat, whose body was found in Waukegan three weeks after she was abducted on May 29, 1984.

Crawford disclosed that authorities had agreed at a meeting in Chicago that the death penalty would be sought against Coleman in three states before other charges would be placed in abeyance indefinitely.

That meeting was arranged by then-U.S. Atty. Dan Webb, after the capture of Coleman and Brown by Evanston police on July 20, 1984. Crawford said authorities agreed to try Coleman in three states in case the death penalty in one or two of them was overturned.

Crawford also said he would take no action against Thomas Vanes, the chief prosecutor in the Turks case who, in an effort to get Coleman to testify, had sent a note to Coleman questioning his manhood and courage.

Crawford said that Vanes, who removed himself from the case, had been

``moved to passion`` by details of the Gary crimes. Crawford called the note a mistake, but said it was ``an understandable mistake.``